


Fall to Fly

by TheLibraryWitch



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awesome Frigga (Marvel), Depression, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kid Loki (Marvel), Kid Loki and Kid Thor (Marvel), Kid Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Gets a Hug, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Pre-Thor (2011), Suicide Attempt, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, au- asgard has therapists, but it does get better, sortof?, though she doesn't actually show up...you'll see, well...sortof?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 05:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19864576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLibraryWitch/pseuds/TheLibraryWitch
Summary: Loki “falls” much earlier than Thor’s coronation. This changes more than you would think.AKA, A pre-Thor au combining elements of Agent of Asgard Loki with the MCU, essentially what would have happened if Loki was canonically genderfluid and Asgard had therapy.





	Fall to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a short thing for an anon prompt on tumblr.....and then it became 6,000 words long.

The first time Loki learns to fly, he is falling. 

If he hadn’t been panicking so badly, he would have been musing at the bizarre set of circumstances that led to this situation. 

Pulled along on another one of Thor and his friends’ stupid quests, the ones he definetely did not love being invited on, the ones that were simple nousinces that did nothing at all to soothe the definitely nonexistent gnawing worry that  _ nobody likes you they don’t want you around, nobody would even notice if you were gone _ \- those quests.

Those quests, which also had the unfortunate side effect of Loki being left behind often, not on purpose, not really, just,  _ Loki come on you need to run faster maybe if you quit skipping training you could keep up,  _ \- but it was fine. It’s not like he did not have experience with this.

As Thor and the warriors ran ahead, Loki began to fall back, his lungs burning, the sound of approaching bilgesnipes grew louder in his ears. Deep breath. Everything would be fine. Just find a tree, hide out for a bit, then make your own way home.

_ I have to go it alone, as always.  _

And everything did seem to be going well, he thought, finding a sufficiently large tree that the beasts couldn't topple, and probably none of this would have happened at all……

…….If it weren’t for the giant eagle.

Never let it be said that Loki Odinson, second prince of Asgard, did not know how to make a dramatic exit. 

After a brief and definitely dignified, princely, and not at all shrill and terrified scream and fit of struggling, Loki began working a knife out of his sleeve. 

If he had been panicking a bit less, he might have stopped to consider how damn high they were before proceeding to stab the creature in it’s leg. Unfortunately, he very much did not stop to consider that. 

He did, upon being released, quickly become all too aware of how high they were, as the eagle dropped him with a loud screech, and Loki found himself gaining speed as he fell towards the trees the size of ants below, the wind rushing past his ears so fast he could scarcely draw breath. 

That didn’t exactly stop him from screaming. 

“Fly! Uh- FLoat! LEVITATE! Norns damned, AAAAH-” spewing any spell he could think of, Loki continued to plummet towards the earth, and with the realization that any spell that could save him would require an anchor point, none of which were available this high up, came a whisper in his mind,

_ I’m going to die here.  _

With that delightful thought, Loki began to cry. 

He closed his eyes, and tried to calm down enough to think, but none of it was working and he was even closer now, and he didn’t want to be a spot on the ground, likely nobody would ever find him, and all he wanted to do was _ float, fly, move, just please please please,  _

He felt a bright pain deep in his chest, like something breaking, a sharp crack, a well oiled bow pulled so taut it snapped, and- 

_ \- Please please anything, anything just don’t let me hit the ground-  _

………….And then he didn’t. 

When Loki opened his eyes again, the first thing he noticed was that he was no longer falling. The second thing he noticed was the feathers. If he could have screamed again in this form he would have. But the beak got in the way. Oh. Beak. His beak. The beak he had. Well that was totally reasonable. Beak. 

_ Can Magpies get heart attacks? They probably can. Oh-  _

_ I didn’t do that. Did I just do that? I don’t know such a spell, this isn’t a glamour, what in the Realms-  _

_ Stop. Okay. Stop freaking out just….. _

Well birds couldn't exactly take deep breaths, but there was an attempt. Mother’s breathing exercises were much more useful to an Aesir boy than a bird. Still. Comforting thought. 

Well. Not the time to look a gift horse in the mouth he supposed. Which direction is Asgard again? 

Northeast 50 measures, said his brain, and that wasn’t weird at all. He could taste the wind. 

Wait till I show Thor what I can do, he mused, tricks aren’t so useless now, are they brother? 

Nobody had to know that he had no idea how he had done this. 

* * *

  
  


Incidentally, he never did end up telling Thor, at least not in that century. Because arriving in Asgard posed two quite significant problems. One, he had performed a feat of magic he had never heard of, without understanding the why or how, and quite frankly he would rather not deal with baseless accusations of dark magic  _ again  _ , thank you very much. 

Could you even be persecuted for magic done on accident? Not worth the risk, especially with opinions on magic users, especially male ones, being as they were. 

Well. Not that Loki exactly felt male half the time anyway. But it’s not like he was going to tell anyone about whatever that was. No need to give people another reason to hate him. 

The second problem he realized was that just as he had no idea how to activate this spell, if that’s even what it was, he sure as Hel didn’t know how to  _ undo _ it . Wonderful. 

When in doubt, go to the library. Birds got in all the time. And, well. He could probably carry books with just magic, right? 

* * *

* * *

The change comes in the middle of a sip of wine, and if illusions were sound proof Loki would have screamed. 

As she sits beside Thor at this months’ fifth damn “very important banquet” to welcome the ambassadors from Vanaheim, Loki thanks the norns that she was already wearing a glamour. 

It’s a habit she picked up some years ago, between the taunts about her size and constant illnesses that turned her skin grey, and the simple fact of not wanting to be seen, not really, and was it any different if nobody saw her anyway- 

Not the point. Nobody at the table noticed the shift, the glamour ensuring that all who looked in her direction saw the same sharp jaw and masculine form as what sat there ten seconds ago. 

She took a deep breath, cloaked herself, and got up, marching away to the library. Somebody, likely the Allfather, would notice eventually that all she had left behind was a hollow duplicate, a shell to nod and smile politely, disappear the food on her- _ his _ plate and send alerts to Loki as needed, a prompt to take over control if anything more complex than questions of the weather were directed at the illusion. 

No matter. It was nothing she had not done before, did not still do, quite often, to get away from conversations she could not stand, and though the Allfather would not condone such cowardly behaviour, well, he couldn’t exactly condemn it openly without sending the whole palace into a frenzy, with news that the wily second prince could disappear into thin air, appear in places he was not. 

It’s not as if anyone had much to say her as of late, anyway. Who could blame Loki for wanting to escape hours of baseless propositions he would never bring to Thor, or father, as requested, to sit, and stare, and humm in agreement, nobody once asking his opinion on the matter at hand. 

No, Loki had better things to do. Like go to the library. 

* * *

It had been happening for nearly two centuries now, this shifting. It was as if the first shift had unlocked something, cracked it, and now she couldn’t stop. (She wasn’t sure if she wanted to.) Girl, Boy, neither, both, and back again, an ever changing mix of features and voice pitches with no explanation, no rhyme or reason to them. 

Well. None that Loki was willing to acknowledge. And if she had, eventually, figured out how to suppress it, how to hammer her features back into the sharp ones of a man when she was not, to squeeze herself into shapes that itched and scratched and made her want to scream, when just letting it be and staying in the form her body chose felt so much more comfortable, because despite the differences they were all her, all Loki, her form somehow never shifting into something she was not - well. That was what glamours were for. 

Nobody had to know. Nobody had to see. 

It would just be too much of a hassle, of course. That was the only reason. Asgardians were as a whole so narrow minded, could never grasp what it meant to just be, to contain multitudes that were all one person, fluid and yet always united - yes. That was it. Simple convenience. 

She wasn’t afraid. 

Not at all. 

Which was why, of course, as she appeared in front of the library section she had visited almost daily for the past two centuries, she did not, anywhere in side of her, hope that maybe there was something she had missed, that maybe this wasn’t about gender at all, and that maybe, just maybe, there was someone in Asgard like her. 

She was only here for research purposes. She still had the same goal as when she had first found the section on shapeshifters, only trying to find a safe, less itchy way to suppress the damned changes. Just trying to figure out a way to break this curse, or illness, because that’s what it was, that’s what it had to be. Of course. 

Her mother had once said that Loki’s lies were so intricate she worried Loki lied even to himself.

_ You would get lost in them darling, if you’re not careful. Cast enough illusions, tell enough lies and you risk forgetting what is real.  _

Well. 

Maybe that was the point. 

* * *

* * *

  
  


The second time Loki learned to fly, they weren't falling. 

They weren't falling, it wasn’t a fall, this plumet through the clouds, because they had jumped. 

And they  _ weren’t _ afraid, as their heartbeat echoed in their ears, and they weren’t trying to die. 

They were just. Experimenting. 

Despite the ever damned shifting which continued, and the more recent changes into cats, snakes, and even a storybook, once, Loki had not been able to turn into any flying creature since that fateful day, now five hundred years past. 

They were experimenting, they repeated to themselves. This was a test, to recreate the conditions of the first change, to fly. 

They were not falling, because they were not trying to die, because Loki Odinson was not mad, was not a coward, and Loki Second Prince of Asgard, Trickster, Liesmith, Silvertongue, feared mage, was definitely not crying or in distress. 

Their face was wet because of the humidity, and they had chosen the highest cliff in sight to have the most time to shift. That was all. 

And if all the books about shapeshifters said that each shape required one to have the characteristics beforehand, because shapeshifting was deeper than glamours, could show one’s very soul, if countless articles on innate magic claimed that loss of a certain form could only be caused by loss of a piece of one’s soul, like warriors being unable to turn into wolves when they turned cowardly and bitter, losing the bravery of a wolf, the strength of a bear, 

Well. They just had to be wrong.

Winged creatures, they claimed, were forms of only the most fluid spirits, usually beings less concerned with how they were perceived, birds, air, and flight, were the domains of chaos and freedom, 

They were, quite literally, the winds of change. 

But Loki had not changed. They _ hadn’t . _

Nothing about them had become stagnant, suppressed, less free or chaotic than the day they had fallen from the eagles claws and soared home to Asgard. Nothing at all. 

They hadn’t told anyone about the shifting because it Just. Wasn’t. Necessary. 

Just like they hadn’t told anyone about the days they couldn’t bear to move, to think, the weeks spent hiding in their room, enchanted by sleeping spells of their own making because if they were awake they wanted to tear their own skin off. 

Both had been happening for years now. Never mind that they were only getting worse. Never mind the comments they got when they forgot the damned glamour and showed up to meals with dark circles under their eyes, shaking. 

Nobody had to know. It was just easier this way. Softer. Safer. 

And if they felt like they were drowning, lately, and if the library had once again failed to yield any solutions,

Well. They were going to come of age, soon. Barely a century left. Wouldn’t do for the second prince of Asgard to be found crying over absolutely nothing, now would it? 

Even if they could find the words to explain, they wouldn’t. It was entirely their decision. 

And they were  _ choosing _ , for nothing to be wrong. 

Forcing their body to shift into forms that felt wrong wasn’t a problem. They could ignore the itching. They had still never found another shifter of their, say, particular nature, and if it felt like a lie when they said that didn’t bother them, well. 

Truth is what you make it. Rewrite the damn narrative. 

Which is why this was definitely just an experiment. It had nothing to do with the ever growing weeks, months, years of grey that were becoming impossible to fake their way out of. It had nothing to do with the recent fights with Thor, who just would!not! Accept! That nothing was wrong hadn’t he heard them a million times saying to mind your own business,  _ it’s not like you ever bothered caring before why do you pretend to give a damn now! _

It had nothing to do with his mother’s prodding to  _ eat just a little more, Loki, please, _

Nothing to do with the near accusatory questions about what was wrong when they all  _ know damned well that nobody wants to hear all about my problems, Thor, you said so yourself-  _

_ I’ve stopped being so dramatic after all, see? _

Which is exactly why they weren’t falling. They had jumped off of the highest cliff they could find to prove a point, is all. An experiment. 

They were flying, and they, Loki of Asgard, were completely fine. 

Until they hit the ground, and suddenly maybe they weren’t fine, because as all the air left their chest they felt something shift, break, crack, a sharp hot pain that felt similar to the first shift but carried so much more pain, and oh, that was blood, there was blood, interesting, and there were so many strange sounds and past the ringing in their ears Loki could barely hear a high-pitched, continuous keening- 

Pathetic. 

This whole thing was damned pathetic. Couldn’t even find a mountain high enough to- 

No. To what. Mountain height had nothing to do with the fact that they hadn’t changed. They had failed to turn into a bird. That was all. They hadn’t been trying to do anything else. The sinking feeling in their chest, the silent tears falling down their cheeks into the ground below, those were just from pain, nothing more. 

And hey, if they were a little bit disappointed, just the slightest bit, that the fall hadn’t killed them. 

Well. 

They were in an awful lot of pain after all. Maybe death would have been preferable. But no. That would be cowardly. Regrettable, at best, to die in just as pathetic of a way as they had lived. The second prince of Asgard, Thor’s shadow, so easily forgotten that he went and got himself killed in a mad stunt and nobody even noticed he was gone for weeks. 

The thought was so oddly funny that somewhere beyond the haze of nothing quite feeling real, solid, here, somewhere deep in the thing that was just their body, not truly them, not truly Loki, they felt themselves chuckle. 

Then, they felt something grind, quite unpleasantly, and shift. 

Then they didn’t feel anything at all. 

* * *

  
  


When he woke up the first thing Loki noticed was that his glamour was gone. The second thing he noticed was that he was, thank the norns, actually a  _ he _ . 

_ Nobody has to know nobody has to know nobody has to see- _

The third thing he noticed, amongst half formed plans of  _ escape run hide before I change again can’t let them see  _ was that Thor was next to him, sitting in a chair. In Asgard. In the healing hall. 

Oh. Wonderful. 

The fourth thing Loki noticed was that Thor’s face said he was going to finish what Loki had most definitely not been trying to do. 

“What were you thinking?!” Thor yelled,

And while usually he would have a comeback, a clever quip to distract, to diffuse, a reminder that Eir was very particular about noise levels and Thor you oaf keep your voice down, don’t you know how to talk like a decent person- 

Loki could only stare. Because Thor, mighty, golden, perfect Thor, crowned prince of Asgard, warrior, and pillar of masculinity, was crying. Scratch that, he was bawling, and seemed to have been for some time. His eyes were red, and tears dripped down already wet cheeks, nose runny,  _ how undignified, Thor what in the realms _

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” Thor screamed,and through the strange haze that still suspended Loki above his body, none of this quite real, Loki recognized that he should say something. 

Thor was very upset. He couldn’t quite understand why Thor was so upset, because despite the screaming, well, look Loki wasn’t dead, he was fine, and quite frankly he didn’t see why Thor was acting like it would have been all that terrible if he had died. It would have been an accident. Shameful, of course, stupid, but Thor would remain, shining beacon of the realms, and who knows, maybe without his overdramatic shadow to follow him around his life would actually be easier. 

Luckily, he didn’t have to think too long, or deal with Thor’s uncharacteristic behaviour, because Eir appeared from behind a curtain. 

“Out.” 

Thor looked up sharply, still sniffling. “What?”

“Out, my prince. I need to check on your brother now that he is conscious, and I will not have my patients being yelled at in a place of healing. You can return once I am done and you have calmed yourself. Now, out.”

Though obviously reluctant, Thor got up and began to leave. Both the brothers knew better than to disobey a direct order from Eir. This didn’t stop Thor from shooting a look over his shoulder that Loki didn’t understand. 

Ah, well. This amount of concern was unnecessary. He had injured himself practicing magic before, and this wasn’t even that bad. He was alive, they would ask a few questions, and then Loki could go back to figuring out what else on the long list of wrongs was wrong with him. 

For a second, as the door closed behind Thor, he was almost relieved. 

And then he saw Eirr’s face. Uh-oh. 

For a moment, she only stared at him, her hawkish eyes seeming to pierce through and rummage in his very soul. He looked away, shifting uncomfortably. 

“So. Are you going to tell me what happened, or should I tell you what I think first” Her voice was strangely gentle, but had an almost threatening undertone. He wasn’t going to get out of this, was he. 

Yet, when he opened his mouth to spin the truth, to _ clarify _ that he had only been testing a theory, really, that’s all, to deflect the uncomfortable concern and the eyes that saw too much, the fog choked him. 

Whatever had happened as he fell, the strange feeling of being in his body yet not a part of it, as if his very self had been shifted slightly out of sync, seemed to be making it quite difficult to connect his mouth to his brain. He would have minded more if he didn’t suspect that the strange feeling was also what was making everything so soft, less, bright somehow, and if nothing really mattered, if nothing quite felt real, well, it certainly made this unfortunate situation easier to deal with. 

So he said nothing. 

Eir sighed deeply, and seemed to take that as an answer. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I think. I think that late last evening, as your brother told me, you two got into a rather serious fight.” 

He barely suppressed a flinch. Oh. Thor had talked to her. Fantastic. 

“And then, after screaming some things about, what was it, not being seen, perhaps even not mattering at all, you disappeared off the training grounds and into the woods.”

Sounds about right. Why was she speaking to him as if he was incapable of memory? 

“Thor, worried by your uncharacteristic outburst and harsh words, went after you” 

That, oh, _ that _ he had not known. Damn. Though, in retrospect it made sense, he had been quite deep in the forest at that point, and with it being near witching hour on a cloudy night, he had not been expecting to be found quickly, if at all. 

Found? Not found. You were planning to fly, not fall. There was never supposed to be anything in need of being found. 

Somehow the thoughts were no longer so convincing. 

“After running for hours, with you just out of sight, either not hearing or ignoring his calls, you got too far ahead and vanished. Thor panicked, even more concerned now, and continued in the direction you had gone.” 

Now she fixed him with a harsh glare, one that made him want to curl up and hide, escape the reality of being seen, in more ways than one. 

“Which was quite fortunate, for you, because by continuing up that direction, he eventually rose up the side of a mountain, and when he looked over, what should he see, but his brother, on an opposite cliff, too high up to hear his yelling. Then, he saw his brother jump, clear off the cliff, and fall limp towards the ground hundreds of measures below.” 

Loki closed his eyes,frowning. It  _ wasn’t _ what she thought. It wasn’t what Thor undoubtedly thought. It wasn’t.  _ wasn’t _ . He was reckless sometimes, perhaps, but he wasn’t that much of a coward, 

Well, his mind amended, he may have been a coward but he was not trying to die. He did have some shreds of pride. A prideful coward, perhaps, but Loki Odinson was not mad, and he definitely did not think about death all the time, because only mad people did that. 

Besides. He was the prince of Asgard. He had a privileged life, and absolutely no reason to be upset. He was better than that. He was not trying to die, they just thought so little of him to jump to the worst conclusions. 

Even in his head the argument sounded weak. 

“So, Loki. Is there anything you would like to tell me?”

He still could not meet her eyes, but, finally able to grasp together some semblance of a voice, he muttered, 

“You're wrong” It came out slurred and awkward, making him notice the larga bandage covering half his head and face. Oh. Maybe that’s where all the blood came from. 

“What?” Her voice was kind, and patient, but there remained the firm undertones that made Loki want to squirm. 

“I- I know. It looked…. Unfortunate. Really. And” He swallowed, trying to soothe his uncooperative throat “I’m sorry. For scaring you. You and Thor. I just. I was...experimenting.” 

Yet as soon as the words passed his lips, he froze. If he were to tell her about what he was experimenting, why he was, most surely, jumping off of cliffs higher than the clouds with no protection or safety net but also really definitely not trying to kill himself, well, he would have to explain to her about the shifting. And if she knew about one kind of shifting, she might catch the other kind, and if she knew that then she might tell mother, and Thor, and _ The Allfather- _

But. . . what other choice did he have? Admit to one shameful thing, or deny it and reveal another? Though ... maybe ...nobody had ever said being different genders was...shameful, exactly. In fact, most of what made Loki worry was that it was never mentioned at all. Girls were girls and boys were boys. Nothing, not the library, not his teachers, not his peers or parents had ever mentioned a single person like him. 

Of course, there was plenty of disapproval around his practice of seidr, because although male sorcerers were not unheard of, they were not respected either, choosing to forego the valiant call of battle for tasks relegated to women. But, then again, he had practiced seidr, and despite the taunting, he didn’t regret it. 

Couldn’t, for one minute, even consider not connecting with something that was a part of him, was so innate that he couldn’t imagine life without it. And despite the fact that he had often wished to be a girl, to be left to study the art in peace, he was as sure as Mimir’s mind that this was not what that was.He wasn’t a girl sometimes so he could do girl things without fuss, je just  _ was _ . The shifting was just as innate as his magic, and he was a boy sometimes, fuck what anyone said about sorcerer’s. 

Well. How bad could it be. Better than being labeled mad and locked away, he supposed.

“I was trying to turn into a bird. Well. A magpie, to be more specific. I tried to recreate the circumstances that led to such a feat last time and, well, it went poorly” As he finished the sentence he tried for a reassuring, self deprecating grin, but with the state of his face it felt more like a grimace. 

Eir stared at him silently, something behind her eyes he could not place. Just when the quiet grew so long that he was going to ask if she was angry at him, she said, 

“You’re a shapeshifter.” There was no shock in her voice, no accusation, and yet, strangely, there didn’t seem to be the slightest hint of surprise either. 

“Uh. Yes, I suppose so.” 

“And when did you discover this ability? You said you were trying to recreate a set of circumstances, yes?” 

He nodded, and quickly recounted the tale of his first shift. Maybe this wouldn’t end all too terribly after all. But then Eir spoke, and all his hope shattered like glass. 

“And why, exactly, did you not come to me with this information when your shifting first manifested?! You’re studious, I’m sure you’ve read by now what can happen to untrained shape-shifters, am I correct?” 

He had, in fact, read about what she was referring to. Shapeshifters, unfamiliar with the anatomy of their birth forms, (because what child has the internal organ structure of an Aesir memorized?) if allowed to shift without assistance and medical supervision while still young and untrained, could go back to their forms halfway, and wrong. He had read horror stories of children as young as 80 shifting into butterflies, giggling in delight, only to attempt to change back and ending up empty sacks of skin, with the internal structures of a butterfly, and dying a gruesome death as their body failed to accommodate for the mismatched parts. 

He grimaced. He had read those books, and he had been about to run to Eir, terrified that his insides were that of a bird. But two things stopped him. 

One, he had shifted into a girl for the first time in the middle of the run to the healing halls, and had proceeded to teleport to her rooms and panic for a good three days until the shift passed. Secondly, during those three days, she had realized she felt fine, and, even upon constructing an x-ray spell, had realized that her internal organs were exactly as they should be. 

When, upon further shifting endeavors, this had continued to be the case, she had simply assumed she was more aware of anatomy than most children, must have read about it at some point. So he had let it be, and eventually forgotten about it. 

“Well.” He began, realizing how bizarre this would sound but at this point he was nearly beyond caring, “I. I shifted back, and, well I guess I already had my own anatomy memorized, or saved somehow, because there weren’t any problems. I even checked with a spell, I’m not stupid, and well….it never became a problem, so, I, uh….” He trailed off as Eir’s gaze turned to him again. 

“And here we are, with you trying to convince me that you are not at any risk of self endangerment.” 

He didn’t think this counted at all, it was just practicality, and he would have said so, but between the circumstances that brought him here and her never ending series of  _ looks, _ he kept quiet. 

When she spoke again, it was so quiet he looked up, confused,

“Loki. I’m glad you told me about this, I wish you had told me sooner, of course, but in the end I’m glad you’re safe, and we can work on this later.” 

Somehow he suspected she was not saying this because she was preparing to release him. 

“However, actually, if your brother had not showed up carrying you, nearly dead,”

Loki flinched.  _ Oh he was really going to have to have a conversation with Thor at some point wasn’t he.  _

“I was going to seek you out anyway. Your mother asked me to. At the time, though I respect Frigga’s opinion, not just as Queen but as my dear friend, and as a mother, I did not believe the matter was as urgent as she seemed to think. I believe I was wrong.” 

Loki tilted his head.  _ What was she talking about.  _

“She has been worried for some time now, as have your tutors, in fact, and even Lady Sigyn,”

Sigyn? They had been close, but he had not spoken to her in months….

_ And whose fault is that, _ hissed a voice. 

Speaking to people had just become so draining, as of late. 

Eir paused, as if changing what she was about to say. “Loki, have you ever spoken with Lady Hugr?” 

“The mind healer?” They did! They thought he was mad!

“Yes. Your mother thought it would be best if you spoke with her, even for a short time. I agree with her assessment.” 

“I’m not  _ crazy _ .” Loki hissed, no longer caring that this was Eir. He wanted to leave, he was fine, he was always fine, they didn’t know anything and why was everyone making such a big deal out of- 

“I’m not saying you are.” Eir said, her tone infuriatingly calm. “Plenty of people speak to mind healers, to sort through life problems, to deal with grief, Loki, it’s not healthy to lock yourself away. You are a wonderful young man, and yet you’re shrinking when you should be growing, and you are not allowed to keep hiding until you disappear completely.” 

Loki stared at her in shock. How dare she act like she knew anything about- 

“However, quite frankly it’s not up to you at this point, given the circumstances. You will be meeting with her for at least two months, and confined to the healers halls for a week.” 

_ “What _ , you can’t do that, I’m  _ fine _ , you can’t-” 

“Actually, you will find that, as your healer, I very well can. Especially seeing as your brother just witnessed you run off in the middle of the night and jump off a cliff.” 

“Wh. Thats. No! I’m fine!” Loki was crying, all the disconnection gone and suddenly he was very very aware of all the strange casts on his body, the aches, and he couldn’t stop shaking but it barely even mattered because, “I’m not _ mad _ ! I’m absolutely fine! I’m not weak, I can deal with it, quit overreacting and just leave me alone-” 

“Were not calling you mad, Loki. This is not unheard of, Mind healers are a profession for a reason.”

“They’re for crazy people! I’m fine! I already told you _ I wasn’t trying to kill myself! _ ” 

Eir simply stared at him, unrelenting. Loki, realizing he wasn’t going to get her to budge, changed topics. 

“Don’t let Thor in.” He hated how weak his voice sounded, much too close to begging. 

Eir smiled. I believe he is speaking with your mother. Either way, as you wish. I will not. But even I can’t keep him out forever.” 

Loki laid his head back and cried, burrowing as far into the blankets as he could without upsetting the bandages and, oh, there really were quite a lot of them weren't there. 

He was fine. He was nearly an adult, he did not need to be coddled. He was fine!

But at this point the words had ceased to hold any truth, as if screaming them at Eir had broken the weaving of his own conviction,opening holes for the words to drip through and leave him empty, and very, very tired. 

  
  


Loki slept. 

* * *

  
  


When Loki snuck into her brothers room, she was surprised to find him at the desk, soft sounds of a quill on parchment just audible over the sounds drifting through the open window to his right. 

For a second, she considered leaving. He had not seen her yet, never did when she used this spell. She could turn and run, save this for another day, maybe never, forever running from the fear of rejection, an action that nevertheless prevented any possibility of acceptance. 

She took a deep breath, and,

“Hello brother!” 

She jumped a little, but Thor had not even looked up, still scratching away at whatever he was working on. Damn. The oaf was getting observant, or she was getting too predictable. 

Then Thor did set his quill down, an air of finality to it, and turned to look at her. 

And then he kept looking. 

And kept looking. 

Loki wasn’t breathing. But it was fine. Who needed air anyway. 

“er...hello....Sister?” And there was surprise in his voice, yes, maybe some confusion, but none of the malice or disgust she had imagined, and it felt like letting go of something very heavy,

“Hello Thor,” 

She was an adult now, a fully of age man, woman, person, whatever. Her ceremony had been yesterday, her parents beaming, and Thor, Thor had composed a ballad, of all things, because 

_ You love poetry and stories so much brother, I thought I might try my hand at it!  _

And the lyrics had been grimace inducing, the rhymes mismatched and rhythm halthing, but Thor had belted out the song with a giant grin, a simple melodic accompaniment courtesy of Fandral and his lyre, and all the enthusiasm of a child receiving a wolfhound pup fr Yule. 

And despite the assorted snickers, and the ear-grating awkwardness of it all, Thor had chosen something for her, because she liked it, had paid attention to the stories she told of ancient mages and tales of sprites and woven them together into an oddly informative tale of the untold bravery of seidr users, of all things. 

And in the end, he had stared right at Loki, and seen her, really seen her, and if she was tearing up a little behind yet another glamour nobody had to know. 

* * *

  
  


Let it never be said that Loki of Asgard was not chaotic. For the fist sessions with Lady Hugr, and then for bursts of days after that, Loki had been determined to embody chaos, and embody it she did. 

After quickly realizing that not even her own delusions were going to convince the healing staff that she was completely fine and not all self destructive, Loki had sulked. She had glared at Lady Hughr, and insisted that they she had no place here. 

He had yelled every argument he could think of at the healers, and had his magic restrained more times than he could count. Can’t go setting the bastards on fire now, can we. 

She had tried different potions, one had turned her green. She had insisted she didn’t need any damn potions, and threw it at Eir’s head. She had been given a calming potion. 

They had been released from the healing halls, locked themselves in a closet for a week, and been dragged right back again. 

But eventually, slowly, maybe his mind had gotten a little quieter, a little more kind, and it’s not that he didn’t think their little mental tricks he was given to practice weren’t stupid, and maybe he was weaker for it, but every once in a while his mind would be blissfully quiet, and he could think, and. Well. Okay. Maybe they were on to something if it meant he could have this. 

And it’s not like everything was always fine, and it’s not like Loki didn’t now have a list of words that felt taped to her forehead sometimes, even after she was released. Wandering the halls while supressing the urge to dart into corners, as if anyone who saw her could read “obsessive tendencies, unfounded worry” and “Bouts of melancholy”

She had a few choice words to say about their phrasing as well. Her worries were not excessive ThankYouVeryMuch, she was just an inherently terrible and manipulative person who had tricked everyone she cared about into thinking she was halfway decent. Haha! 

Lady Hugr spent a long time with that one. 

But eventually she was out of the wards more than she was in, and maybe there were labels and potions that she was still convinced made her skin slightly green, and maybe she still worried about what it meant that the prince of Asgard went to talk to a mind healer every week, to say out loud things that weren’t true but that still somehow got worried about. 

And over time, Loki’s mind was mostly quiet. And he mostly did not leave illusions in his place to nod while he went to hide, and he mostly genuinely wanted to talk to people, and best of all, his mind, though always fast and full and a touch anxious, was quiet enough to not feel like it was screaming at him. That was worth it. 

And then there was Thor.

Because while she had been mandated to going to see a mind healer, and then grudgingly convinced to keep going, and then eventually continuing on her own will because okay, maybe the constant litany of various wishes for death and self destruction wasn’t the  _ best  _ mental narrative,

While she had been doing that, and raging, and hiding from everyone for months while her brain screamed at her louder before it began to quiet, Thor had spoken to someone to. 

Thor, perfect Thor, who she had trouble putting in the same sentence as low-self esteem, Thor, the epitome of what Asgard thought a prince, a man, was supposed to be, had gone to see a mind healer because, 

_ Maybe I do have things I want to talk about, you don’t know everything _ , and then, with a slight fading of his wide grin,  _ and well, you might not want to talk to me Loki, but. I want to help. And I don’t know how, and I think I’m just messing more stuff up. But I spoke to Mother, and I want to, and I’ve been worried but I didn’t know what to say- I’m no good with words like you are, and - well. I don’t want to lose you, Loki.  _

At the time, she had called him a sentimental fool and teleported away, and stayed away, away from him, from everyone, for a long time. 

But as the months turned into years, and he kept going to the healing halls, as he began to make apologies that were actual apologies, as he stopped calling her spells tricks and cautiously started showing up at the library while she was buried in books, asking with genuine curiosity what she was working on, as he told her, in no uncertain terms that  _ he does not appreciate it when she called him slow, you’re not the only one who gets anxious about things you know,  _

And when, for the first time in centuries they were actually talking, and Loki was being  _ seen,  _

_ -and she didn't hate it- _

Well, maybe had Loki started to believe him. Just a little bit. 

So between that and the sure to be remembered poetic incidents of yester-evening, she had decided that maybe she did trust him enough for this. Maybe. 

And if telling her mother first, and planning it out painstakingly with Lady Hugr, and having extra potions for anxious thoughts stowed in all her pockets, had been helpful, well. It never hurt to be too prepared. 

So, 

“Hello Thor,” she said, trying for her signature smirk but not quite succeeding, “I’m, uh. Loki.”

“I can see that.” There was more amusement in Thor’s eyes than anything else now, and that was honestly more reassuring than it should be,

“Is it an illusion?” 

“What?”

“Is this an illusion or……”

“No.”

Thor walked forward a little, and Loki suppressed the urge to flee. 

“Are you a woman or do you just like looking like this?”

“What?”

Why did Thor always manage to find exactly the question she was not expecting. 

“I mean. Are you my brother and you just felt like coming to say hello to me while somehow transformed into a woman, which is fine, though unexpected, or  _ are _ you a woman?”

“Uh. Currently? The latter. Sometimes the former.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay?!”

“Well...yes. I mean. Is Loki still okay?”

“.....but…”

“You weren’t expecting me to be okay with it….” Thor’s face fell slight;y. “I can’t blame you.”

Loki tensed, and Thor glanced up at her,

“I didn’t mean it like that! Just….. Younger me was stupid about a lot of things. I’m working on it though. And this is fine. I mean. You being my sister. Or sibling. Or brother. Uh. Whateveryouwant. I-”

Loki cut him off, grining, with a flying hug. “Stop blabbering, I get it. Also yeah, Loki is fine.” 

She stepped back, “I’m still me, first, last, and always. Also, right now I’m your sister, but when it changes I’ll let you know.” 

“Okay.” 

They stared at each other in awkward silence. Well that was anticlimactic. 

“Oh and I have something else to show you.”

Thor took a step back, lifting his hands slightly, “You know I love you no matter what but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’ll trick me.” 

Loki smirked. “It’s not like that. I swear it!”

And with that, she grabbed Thor’s hand, teleporting them both away. 

* * *

  
  


When they reappeared on the roof, Thor yelped, almost falling off before Loki grabbed the back of his tunic. 

“Loki what, I don’t think we should be up here…..”

“Just ...trust me okay?”

Thor eyed the edge of the roof, only a few feet behind her, warily, 

“Loki…..”

“Thor, look. It’s fine. Sigyn is there.” She pointed far downwards, to the garden, where Sigyn grinned and waved at them, hands glowing with a safety spell ready. 

Thor still looked like he was barely suppressing the urge to grab her and never let go, but he nodded. 

With that, Loki turned on her heels and, with an ear splitting grin, leapt off the roof, arms extended. 

This time, she never hit the ground. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is interested I might add a second chapter of this from Eir's perspective, because I have a few head-cannons about Loki and his shapeshifting that I couldn't fit into this POV. 
> 
> This story is slightly original plot and characterization and slightly "the writer got hospitalized and is coping by projecting onto fictional characters and then writing about them being okay in the end" so. Sorry if it got a bit OOC. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought! :D


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